EVOLUTIONARY CHRISTIANITY

A vision of Christianity based partly on
the theory of evolution and other scientific beliefs

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Overview:

Evolutionary Christianity is a dynamic, inter-denominational Christian religious
belief system. It is based on a number of foundational scientific beliefs, including:

The theory of evolution of Earth's animal and plant species over the
past almost four billion years.

Acknowledgement of a universe that has been changing over its almost
fifteen billion years of existence, starting as matter and energy, and more
recently involving consciousness, culture, religion, and technology -- all
of which are in a state of flux in a developmental cosmos.

Michael Dowd wrote/assembled the following essay on Evolutionary Christianity
which he urges people to use without any need to cite him as author

Evolutionary Christianity (EC):

is an integral vision of the Christian faith
that honors biblical and traditional understandings, conservative and liberal,
while enthusiastically embracing an evolutionary worldview. A passionate and
unabashedly all-embracing, ecological, deep-time honoring, and
prophetic/evangelistic celebration of the Christian tradition that honors
Roman Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Orthodox, Anabaptist, Universalist, and
New Thought expressions, Evolutionary Christianity sees the entire history of
Cosmos and emergent complexity
of matter, life, consciousness, culture, and technology in a sacred,
God-glorifying way.

From the perspective of Evolutionary Christianity....

The epic of evolution
that has emerged out of the last three centuries of modern scientific work is
seen in a Christ-edifying, scripture-honoring way — as a sacred story
that can expand and strengthen faith, inspire passion and creativity, and
empower us as individuals and as a species to fulfill God's will
for us.

Biblical
insights and traditional understandings of the core of Christianity
come alive in a radically new way and can be more fully realized than
ever before.

God is honored
for having been creating, destroying, loving, communicating, revealing, and
reconciling for billion of years.

Jesus is honored as a unique and divine expression of infinite love,
compassion, generosity, forgiveness, and active, nonviolent resistance to evil and
injustice — a personification of God's way, gospel truth, and eternal life. Jesus was, among other things, a model of how to live and love from a basis of deep conviction — reflecting God's will for
humanity and for Creation as a whole. He embodied (incarnated) God's path to freedom from slavery to
sin (self-absorption, addiction, deceit, laziness, pride, anger, arrogance, lust,
worry, etc). He also incarnated the values of the kingdom and showed us the way
to effectively engage and transform unjust social structures.

The Holy
Spirit is honored as the in-spiring and life giving breath, transforming
fire, and guiding Wisdom within and beyond — the enlivening, sustaining,
sanctifying, cooperation-building dynamic of ongoing Creative Emergence.

Humanity is honored as that part of Creation
which allows the Whole of Reality, manifest and unmanifest, immanent and
transcendent (i.e., God), to be celebrated in conscious self awareness.

Scripture
is honored as a unique and irreplaceable collection of sacred books, poems,
gospels, letters, and other writings that reveal some of the practices, beliefs,
history, and understandings of the ancient Hebrews and early Christians. While
it has been, and will continue to be, rightly regarded as a divine source of
wisdom and moral instruction, from the perspective of Evolutionary Christianity
the Bible is not seen as the beginning, nor the end, nor even the most
important part, of God's self-revelation.

God's timing is honored. Earlier generations cannot be faulted for not knowing what we know, or for not interpreting things
as we're now able to do. God reveals truth to each generation in ways that
make sense at the time, given the psychological, social, political, economic, and technological realities of the day. In a
developmental cosmos there's ultimately no privileged position theologically. God revealed to the biblical writers, early church
leaders, reformers, and others down through the ages only what could be revealed then, and no more. The same is true today. Future generations
will surely have a larger, more comprehensive understanding of the meaning and magnitude of the Christian tradition than we can possibly imagine.

Conservatives are honored for their passionate commitment to upholding, defending, and preserving that which has been
experienced in the past to be healthy, meaningful, life giving, or otherwise important.

Liberals are honored for insisting that we expand our circles of care, compassion, and meaningful interpretations of truth, and
for embodying the evolutionary impulse to transcend what is in order to co-create what God
is calling forth next.

Radicals are honored for periodically upsetting the status quo and forcing both liberals and conservatives to value the
importance of chaos and breakdowns in catalyzing creativity and transformation.

The Fruit of the Spirit is honored as both the means and end of the
spiritual journey, and as the one true indicator of a person's right relationship with God. As Jesus said, "By your fruit you will be
known." What is "the fruit of the Spirit"? The Apostle Paul spoke of it as "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." To this list we could also add "compassion, courage, integrity, self-responsibility, generosity,
and passion for life." Those who evidence such fruit are right with God, no matter what their beliefs. Those who do not evidence such fruit
are not right with God (again, no matter what their beliefs). It's really as simple as that. In any given moment, how can I go from not
being right with God to being right with God? That's basically what the gospel is all about!

The Gospel is
honored as "The Great Story" of God's love and saving grace as revealed in
the Bible, on the cross, and throughout the entire 14 billion year epic of
evolution. The Gospel, as such, is transformative on three levels: personally,
relationally, and globally. To ignore or discount any one of these is to utterly
miss the meaning and magnitude of them all.

On an individual level, the Gospel can, if really
embraced, free a person from addiction to sin and self-absorption, enabling them
to savor the fruit of the Spirit even in the midst of the neverending challenges
of life, and empowering them to be a real blessing to the world regardless of
their shortcomings. It can also enable a person to know heavenly peace no matter
how difficult their situation or life may be.

Relationally, the Christ story shows us exactly
how reconciliation is possible with anyone. When I take responsibility, let go
of thinking I'm right and the other is wrong, step into their experience,
and communicate with love and compassion from that place, miracles
naturally occur. Always.

Collectively, the gospel can free us from species
pride, arrogance, and self-destructive human-centeredness by revealing
God's will for Creation as a
whole and how we as a human family can fulfill our role in furthering what
God has been up to for billions of years by re-incarnating the values Jesus
lived and taught.

To condemn or curse outright a
God-glorifying, Christ-edifying, scripture-honoring way of understanding
evolution (or an evolutionary appreciation of the Gospel), is
blasphemy, pure and simple. It's taking something sacred and meaningful and
calling it evil.

Criticizing, debating, and offering
suggestions for improving our ways of thinking about evolution from a
God-glorifying perspective, on the other hand, or debating about how to most
fruitfully think about
the Gospel
evolutionarily, is God's will and our collective calling at this time in
history. These are among the most vibrant and meaningful conversations the
Holy Spirit
is leading the church into today.

Condemnation (blasphemy) and
constructive criticism (God's will) may sometimes look or sound similar,
but they are in fact polar opposites.

Reference used:

The following information source was used to prepare and update the above
essay. The hyperlink is not necessarily still active today.